Chapter 9: Velvet Seduction
The touch was a brand through the thin fabric of his trousers, a claim staked in the dim light. Andrei’s hand was warm, heavy, and impossibly still. Jimin’s breath caught, trapped in his chest. The vodka, which had moments ago felt like a protective fog, now sharpened every sensation into a needlepoint.
“You’re so pretty,” Andrei murmured again, his thumb stroking a slow, deliberate line along Jimin’s jaw. His eyes were dark pools, reflecting the flickering candle flame. “You look like a bottom, am I right?”
The crassness of the question, delivered in that cultured, black-velvet voice, should have been a bucket of cold water. It was the kind of reduction he hated, the sort of casual categorization Jungkook’s friends would toss around at parties, reducing people to roles. But tonight, after the public humiliation, after feeling like a forgotten accessory, the bluntness felt strangely honest. It wasn’t shrouded in false promises.
Jimin’s phone, still face-up on the table, buzzed again. A final, frantic vibration before the screen went black. Dead.
He looked from the dead phone to Andrei’s waiting face.
“Does it matter?” Jimin heard himself ask, his voice quieter than he intended.
A slow, genuine smile transformed Andrei’s sharp features. “No. It doesn’t.” His hand on Jimin’s thigh gave a slight, approving squeeze before retreating. He signaled the server. “Another round. And the black label whiskey, neat.”
The loss of that possessive weight was its own kind of shock. Jimin felt unanchored again, the space where Andrei’s hand had been now hypersensitive. He watched as Andrei settled back, the picture of relaxed control, as if the entire intimate, charged exchange had been as casual as discussing the weather.
“You’re an artist,” Andrei stated, not asking. “What medium?”
“Charcoal. Some oils.” Jimin took a steadying breath, trying to match the other man’s composure. “Mostly figures. Portraits.”
“Difficult. To capture the life inside the lines.” Andrei accepted the fresh drinks from the server, pushing the whiskey toward Jimin. “Try this. It has more teeth than the vodka.”
Jimin picked up the heavy crystal glass. The whiskey smelled of oak and smoke. He took a sip, and it burned, a deeper, more complex heat that spread through his limbs, soothing the raw, jangling edges of his nerves. It did have teeth. It felt real.
“Jungkook never asked,” Jimin said, the words leaving him before he could stop them. He never asked about my work. He’d say my hands were dirty, that I smelled of turpentine.
Andrei swirled the amber liquid in his own glass. “He is a child playing with toys he doesn’t understand the value of. He saw a beautiful object. I see a craftsman.” He leaned forward again, his voice dropping, but the intensity was different now. It was focused, intellectual. “The structure of the human form, the play of light and shadow… it’s a mathematics of the soul. You understand that.”
No one had ever put it like that. Jungkook would glance at his sketches, offer a vague “nice,” and then his attention would drift back to his phone or the television. Andrei was looking at him as if he were unraveling a complex and fascinating equation.
“I… I suppose I do,” Jimin managed.
“I have a space,” Andrei continued, his tone becoming practical, businesslike. “A penthouse with a northern exposure. The light is impeccable from dawn until dusk. It’s sitting empty. A waste.”
Jimin’s heart began to thud against his ribs, a slow, heavy drumbeat. He knew what was coming. The offer hung in the air between them, more seductive than any touch.
“You could use it. As a studio. No strings.” Andrei’s eyes glinted. “Well. No tedious ones.”
The world outside the velvet booth, the world of rejected calls and rain-soaked humiliation, seemed to shrink into a tiny, insignificant dot. Here was a man offering him light, space, recognition. Everything his art, and his soul, craved.
Jimin looked down at his own hands, at the faint, stubborn traces of charcoal embedded under his nails. He thought of his cramped, dark studio apartment, the one he could barely afford, where the only good light lasted for twenty minutes in the afternoon.
He lifted the glass of whiskey and finished it, the burn a welcome catalyst.
“Show me,” he said.